Jim Franklin is the pastor at the Flora Grace Brethren Church. Christians commemorate several holidays during the course of a year, each corresponding to a major event in the life of Jesus Christ. Good Friday memorializes Christ’s death for our sins and Easter observes His resurrection from the dead. Pentecost remembers God sending the Holy Spirit in the place of Jesus and is considered by many to be the birthday of the Church. The arrival of winter brings Christmas or the Nativity, the celebration of His birth.

We clean the Christmas story up, so to speak. But the fact is Jesus Christ arrived on this earth in a cruel fashion. He was born in a stable in Bethlehem, Judea. Why? No one would give up their spot in a rooming house to a woman in labor. His mother was forced to give birth to the Savior of the World on a pile of hay and use a cattle trough for a crib.

Many of this paper’s readers are farmers. What if your wife had to give birth out in the barn? This is not a favorable beginning for Christ’s career as Savior.

Christians believe that Jesus is not merely a son of God which would be incredible enough. His arrival on earth is noteworthy because the baby born in Bethlehem was God. Isaiah’s famous name Immanuel, which Matthew used in his gospel account, means ‘God with Us.’ God himself entered history as a male baby.

A second thought concerning His birth is that the baby born in Bethlehem was God made man. This means that God had to endure life as an infant just as any other child does. He required feeding, changing, and nurturing. He had to learn to walk and speak and eat, just as any other baby does. The great hymn writer Charles Wesley put it, “Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man.” Christ lived life just as we do, breathed the same air we breathe and became weary during the heat of the day. Why? God became a man so He could die for the sin of all human beings in order to forgive us.

Our salvation began at Bethlehem. Praise His Name!